Cleaning and storing carts

InkjetMall Customer Support Printer Maintenance & Cartridges
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1

In all of my trial and error with the 1430, I now have two sets of carts with ink, and one with flush. I would like to drain, clean and put away one of the sets of ink carts. My understanding is that I should get all the ink that I can out of the cart, and then flush it with distilled water. I’m assuming that a couple of flushes will be needed.

Is this possible, or desirable or am I stuck with two sets of carts forever? If it’s possible are there any tricks, or is patience all that is needed?

2

You can suck most of the ink out of the cartridge with your syringe and blunt tip needle, then rinse with water in the same manner. Inject Distilled water with your syringe, shake it around and suck it out, repeat until clean. To clean out the exit valve you will have to depress the valve itself, you could use the end of the syringe (without a needle attached), with the air vent hole OPEN, and suck out the distilled water until it’s clean.

The other option would be to use the 2 sets of cartridges, so when one runs out you have a full cart on hand without having to stop and refill. This is what I do to keep things going with less down time, yes I have to fill an entire set of 2 carts at once, but that is much less time consuming then 1 set at a time.

3

Thanks Kelly. Now that I can transport the carts without any leaks courtesy of blutac, I will probably keep two sets going. I also found this: SquEasyFill which looks brilliant. Any chance IJM will come out with something similar?

4

So, after checking out your link, I did a test. If you have the nipple style bottles from IJM, a syringe needle fits securely on it! Now, I haven’t tried refilling anything that way yet, but it seems like it should work for desktop carts at least. I think larger carts would be too slow, since you can only get a couple mL out per squeeze of the very rugged bottles. Thoughts?

5

I’ve ordered a set so I’ll be able to report soon. It strikes me that the IJM bottles are quite stiff. I’m hoping that the Octo ones are a lot more squeezable. With my track record for clumsiness, I wouldn’t try what you have done. If they work well, it will make filling a breeze. I hate the current method with a passion. My wife will be happy too as she is not a great fan of my ink changing on her caesarstone bench top.